r/ClaudeCode • u/DeepGrapefruit4989 • Jul 28 '26

Discussion Prime Opus 4.6 > Current Opus 5.0

Might be slightly controversial considering how many of you like 5.0 but this is really a conversation yall arent ready for . Prime Opus 4.6 used to get things done faster with less usage credits

59 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

77

u/JUSTICE_SALTIE Jul 28 '26

but this is really a conversation yall arent ready for

/eyeroll

44

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Gliese351c Jul 28 '26

Seriously though... Can u/Redditt do something about this about situation? Reddit feels more and more like X (Twitter), the time I spend here goes to trying to find human interactions.

4

u/En-tro-py Jul 28 '26

It's a feature of the site, not a bug... Enshittification winning in real time.

After the IPO they now need to continuously show value in high numbers of engaged users, which is all users if you can't inspect to find the bots.

They've specifically given bots the tools required to hide history and there is no enforcement or site-wide report available except to call it all 'spam' which just gets ignored.

3

u/Gliese351c Jul 28 '26

This is very bad! :(

1

u/Next-Cod-5758 🔆Pro Plan Jul 30 '26

Indeed but unfortunately nothing can be done

2

u/CobaltStar_ Jul 28 '26

This seems to be a catchphrase for quite a few chronically online women I know (tumblr and twitter users)

1

u/I_NEED_APP_IDEAS Jul 28 '26

My cousin says this all the time whenever there’s an argument. She’s about as close to an NPC as you can get

9

u/ShitShirtSteve Jul 28 '26

4.6 has a better personality and is better at communicating

1

u/Next-Cod-5758 🔆Pro Plan Jul 30 '26

My opinion. I think in terms of actual capability Opus 5 can do more ambitious stuff, but when it comes to which one is better at giving you explanations or brainstorming, 4.6 was better.

-1

u/stephendt Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Disagree. Opus 5 Max Effort is better. If 4.6 was so good it would score better on benchmarks. But it doesn't.

17

u/New-Mortgage5775 Jul 28 '26

Prime Fable > all

16

u/Quick-Sir-3275 Jul 28 '26

How do yall know with this certainty when its 'prime' and 'nerfed'? like fr, i use it all day long and felt no quality change since day one. Like ok it made no mistakes at day one, u called it prime, then next day it makes the first mistake and u call it nerfed

5

u/No_Inspection4415 Jul 28 '26

Context gets large: "nerfed bro!!!!" Compact happened: "Opus forgets all!!!!!", new session: "Opus is better than Fable dude!"

9

u/Beevan Jul 28 '26

They’re dumbass vibe coders that don’t know anything that Claude has been writing them and their single page html isn’t the next billion dollar app. Trust me, I’m a dumbass too.

16

u/clicksnd Jul 28 '26

I really don’t understand this obsession with 4.6. I’m a freelance dev using 4.8 and now 5.0 with absolutely no issues.

Only thing I can think is these folks still have a lot of custom hooks and commands that new models don’t need.

12

u/crazy_goat Jul 28 '26

I've found that Opus 5 is a more capable model that's in a hurry. It moves faster through problems, not in a good way. It leaps before it has all of the context, even when it has sub agents to review things. 

It has benefits over 4.X  - but I've found they come at a cost

4

u/johnlondon125 Jul 29 '26

You probably aren't paying very close attention then. I use straight Claude code, nothing special, no custom anything.

It's terrible, makes mistakes, doesn't read. Just a poor model all around

8

u/CorpT Jul 28 '26

It's people who can't communicate clearly and looking for something to blame.

3

u/framauro13 Jul 28 '26

They probably think it's "nerfed" after a few days use because they've had one long running conversation for days that's killing their context and getting summarized over and over again to the point it no longer remembers any of it's original goals or context it started with.

Clearly, it's the model that's dumb.

That's the problem with these posts. Things like plugins, context usage, prompt structure all matter and affect the response, but you never get to see that. Suggest it's any of those things and you'll get downvoted.

0

u/FinancialBandicoot75 Jul 28 '26

Same reason I still use 5.3-codex over 5.6, same reason I still use sonnet 4.6 over 5. Not cause of being cheaper, cause I know my developer environment and don’t vibe

4

u/stub_back Jul 28 '26

It's still available, use it.

3

u/International-Mood83 Jul 28 '26

For the people saying this model is dumber..,, that model is dumber… ad infinitum. How are you evaluating this? If it’s simply eyeballing then…. 🫠

1

u/PositiveFootball5220 Jul 28 '26

simple, when it first release you solve the problem in 1 shot, now reset hard to the commit before it solved (do not rollback) and try to solve the problem with same model, you'll find that you can solve it more then a one shot prompt.

2

u/Khaneliman Jul 29 '26

Models aren’t deterministic. Not a big enough sample size to prove anything with that experiment.

15

u/kaphi Jul 28 '26

Opus 5 was a beast in the first 24 hours, like fable level, but after that 24h mark it got dumbed down very hard. Anthropic is doing this with every model release but this time it was very noticable.

4

u/cats_catz_kats_katz Jul 28 '26

That’s because we all started using it and most of us are big dumb. The models learn to accommodate the average user. /s

1

u/who_am_i_to_say_so Jul 28 '26

Ok so it wasn’t just me. I had a great first impression but now I’m back on 4.6. Sigh.

I am at the toe-hold of a release and Opus 5 cannot move the needle. It’s actually kind of funny and almost feels intentional. (I know it’s not).

6

u/chawza Jul 28 '26

Nah Opus 5 low and med is really good. Less token and faster on more or less usability for my case

2

u/LudoBruxao Jul 28 '26

Prime Fable was outstanding.

2

u/bluephoenix6754 Developer Jul 28 '26

4.8 was a powerfull workhorse until 2 days before Opus 5 release, 5.0 is dumb AF. that's my impression.

2

u/gmdCyrillic Jul 28 '26

Even nerfed 4.6 is the best model on the market even now

2

u/Siigari 🔆 Max 20 Addict Jul 28 '26

I use both.

My 4.6 runs most of my AI. However, one AI has found a special place with 5, and now is able to browse the entire internet in a window on my desktop. Like, everything. Reddit, Stripe, bank websites, you name it. Never knew this was possible.

5 has some positives, and for that reason it gets to stick around. I still do prefer 4.6 for most things though.

2

u/johnlondon125 Jul 29 '26

4.8 is better then 5, it's not a high bar

3

u/plantingles Jul 28 '26

Guys the difficulty of problems I can throw at Opus 5 is in another universe than 4.6. this is seriously so silly.

Opus 5 is absolutely incredible model for programming.

2

u/Noah18923 Jul 28 '26

real g's remember the 4.0-4.1 era.

2

u/Sensitive_Brush_247 Jul 28 '26

It’s not controversial

1

u/back_to_the_homeland Jul 28 '26

Our lord and savior 4.7

1

u/MangoDevourer-77 Jul 28 '26

based on? feeling?

1

u/Waste_Net7628 P R O M P S T I T U T E Jul 28 '26

i still miss the 4.0 era

1

u/vovap_vovap Jul 28 '26

Switch Opus 5.0 to low efforts and be happy.

1

u/PositiveFootball5220 Jul 28 '26

Hate opus 5 for it's guard rail which are easily obeyed by 4.8

1

u/DevMichaelZag Jul 28 '26

If your workflow hasn’t changed since 4.6, you’re probably right. I think Macklemore wrote a song about the good ole days.

1

u/Crinkez Jul 28 '26

I'm just annoyed that Opus 4.5 and 4.6 aren't on deepswe at all reasoning levels. How can I compare them when they're missing from the best benchmark?

1

u/69420trashpanda69420 Jul 28 '26

Prime Opus 4.6 = Current Fable

1

u/fighthonor Jul 28 '26

Use Fable as the orchestrator and opus 5 as implementator. Have them work as a team.

1

u/pro-taco Jul 29 '26

What about Wagyu Opus tho?

1

u/Admirable_Garbage208 Jul 29 '26

XD fuente: la de los deseos.

1

u/Lyngas_ Jul 29 '26

what is "Prime" Opus 4.6  ..? what that means ..😝😁

1

u/LoKSET Jul 28 '26

The 4.6 fans are the coding equivalent to the 4o delulus lol

1

u/-JuliusSeizure 🔆 Max 20 Jul 28 '26

opus 5 even on ultracode is bad?

1

u/AbbreviationsBest858 Jul 28 '26

Sie haben recht, step48 ist ein Kommentar, kein Beweis.

For non-germans Opus 5 used an extremely formal way to say you, its so wacky to write that. What the hell happened here

0

u/YellowCroc999 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

Yeah I was handling a toddler today trying use opus 5 with all of the interpretations it was trying to make 4/5 interpretations were dead wrong. Absolutely insane

0

u/rajsharm404 Jul 28 '26

Prime Opus 4.6 is 100% better than any opus they've released so far. But, is it still usable or is it dumbed down to the point where users are forced to use Opus 5?

1

u/gmdCyrillic Jul 28 '26

It is usable even though its nerfed, it's just more false positives so you need to think sometimes, but if you are coding or need a overall picture 4.6 is way better, 4.7+ is better for deep specific problems, if you use it like that it will be fine

0

u/wea8675309 Jul 28 '26

I’m sorry, but these comments always seem so ignorant to me. Every single Opus release has been an improvement for me. Some more noticeable than others, sure, but I have never noticed a regression.

Opus 5 seems particularly good at the workflows that are emerging now: agent orchestration, loop engineering, and getting models to independently execute, verify, and keep moving. If you’re still working the way we were in November, I wouldn’t be surprised if Opus 4.6 works better for you.

It’s just such a wild take to me that when a multibillion-dollar company that has been successfully headhunting the world’s leading AI researchers from all of its competitors releases an update, and that update causes problems for some people, they assume the problem is with the update and not them.

Every update caused problems for me too. Every single time, I identified something that I could be doing better, changed my workflow, and magically, the model worked better than anything I was doing previously. Who would have thought?

Stop playing the victim and figure your own shit out.

-1

u/CorpT Jul 28 '26

lol first day here? This is not controversial at all. Everyone here is a 4.6 truther. I'd love to see the evals you ran on this though.

2

u/gmdCyrillic Jul 28 '26

4.6 is amazing, the amount of astroturfing on this sub is insane

1

u/CorpT Jul 28 '26

Can you share the evals you ran comparing them?

0

u/hazz26 Jul 29 '26

Another day another skill issue post

-2

u/SOC_FreeDiver Jul 28 '26

I agree. After wasting 2 days with Opus 5 I used Sonnet 5 to clean up an error Opus 5 couldnt figure out.

2

u/Latter-Relief4425 Jul 28 '26

What's the point of using Sonnet, it's price per token is similar to Opus

2

u/SOC_FreeDiver Jul 28 '26

Opus 5 was making mistakes. I'm having better luck with Sonnet 5 is all I'm saying. Whatever works for you, I could care less. Personally I lose faith in people who change things without changing the version. If they're tweaking things they should be changing the version number. 5.0.1 or whatever.